Quality of an Alienware M17X R4 REFURB

hi guys,

just looking for a bit of help and guidance in what a believe is a below par A1 condition refurb from an ebay seller.

the box this came in was sealed from the dell outlet in western road, bracknell, berkshire.

i dont expect a brand new machine, ie packaging, etc but i do expect them to at least give it an overall and that involves cleaning out all the dog hairs out of the fans with was reducing their performance.

besides the cleaning side of thing, 4 rubber feet have broken off and where in the bottom of the brown dell carton it came in.. and again it looks like an attempt has been made to put them back on, and a poor job they have done...

also the bottom cover is damaged, some of the clip that hold it to the main chassis are broken off so the cover doesnt fit properly....

i have attached some picture, so far not overly impressed...

i called alienware today to see if i could get a new cover and some rubber feet.... the response i got you would have thought i was asking for a brand new free m17x r4...

just wondering what your thoughts are, should i call again. in alienware defence it might have been because the service tag was not in my name... but really that shouldnt matter should it..

thoughts welcome....

thanks

Ian

 

I think it does matter if the service tag is not under your name.... your seller should of transferred the warranty to your name after you bought the laptop. Judging from the pictures i can only think this machine was very poorly refurbished from Dell... they should definitely be able to fix these issues since Refurb machines from dell carry the regular 1 year warranty plan. you definitely call them again and fight for them to fix it or send you out a better conditioned refurb machine because those pictures are just gruesome.

 

In order to claim warranty, I believe the service tag has to be under your name. Your refurb seller should be in charge of transferring your name to the service tag. You should definitely contact them and make sure the service tag is under your name, and your address. Dell is not like Apple where you physically own an iPhone means you are the owner...

I think they did a poor job of cleaning this out. I've seen a few AW with a green tag at the bottom noticing that this model is a refurb model. Yours doesn't say that though...

 

Call again, ask for the bottom cover explain that the clips are broken and wont attach properly and additionally mention the rubber feet. If that doesn't work out, contact one of the alienware reps in the forum they will gladly help you out. Good thing you checked out the vents that can cause problems. I cant see why some other people leave that in their computers lol, my fan and vents are always super clean.

 

Was this a Dell refurb unit or 'refurbished' from a private seller? I know it came in the Dell box, but was it shipped from Dell?

 

If you go on the Dell Outlet they don't even list the R4 yet for sale. I suspect there is no such thing as a Dell Refurb R4 yet.

 

hi,

thanks for all the posts. i have now spoken to Dell and all has been sorted.

i have transferred the ownership and the warranty will hopefully follow.

this machine was from Dell via an agent. im sure there is more to the story. Dell have confirmed the specs the machine has and it all matches. i have ordered a refurb bottom cover for £20 delivered.

that makes me a happy camper, i have got a bargain now i have spent 3hrs cleaning it...

thanks once again

Ian

 

they have the 17x r4's as well as the 18xr2's, they just go really fast (within minutes).

 

You are correct I recently bought one from the dell outlet website and they move QUICK. I was trying really hard to find one with the 680M video card and only once was I able to see it on there but I did not have my payment information with me at work. By the time I got home 90 minutes later it was not listed!

After a month of shopping I finnally settled on an 17x R4 with the 7970 video card and while it is not as good performance it still is a huge improvement over my last laptop. Also the R4 has the feature to disable the horribly worked Enduro from AMD and I have not had any problems with getting help from the Alienware technical support.

I had a minor issue with the screen on my Refurb purchase and they swapped it out entirely even when a new cable would have fixed the problem. The quality and look for my system when it came in was basicly like new and has benchmarked very well.

3 Months of ownership so far and after that panel swap no problems at all and games like a beast. I recommend the refurbished 17x R4's the dell outlet can save you some serious money if you can deal with systems that are not brand new.

I tried to configure what I ended up getting for 1663 USD in outlet on dell.com for a new one it was over 2000 USD. Glad they helped you out with your situation hopefully they can transfer the warranty as well incase anything else happens.